宁

yes, that is the proverbial phrase, the tao that i speak about is not the true tao. is that what you meant? also, to understand what i wrote above, the hammer that we speak about is not a hammer at all. it is a piece of something we call wood, except it isnt wood at all, it is part of something we call the fibrous part of a large plant, which is only to us a plant, but we really dont know what it is... if we think like this, we havent even passed the beginning stage, in the judaic mythology, labelling is the first task given by god to adam, to help him MANAGE in his world, control the elements, build a home, a farm, have a wife, kids and family. it is good that fellows like you remind us that language is only relative, and does not precisely mean the thing it speaks about. but as i got from the question, it was asked from a technical viewpoint... and if i got that wrong, my bad, sorry

i respect your guys, but i cant agree with your views, what for us are relative terms, for each school was definite and precise, it cannot be the way you want it to be, it is just oversimplification that leads nowhere. the concepts are shaping the qi field, so there are different shapes with different functions. they dont mix up. it is like saying the lungs and the ribcage are the same thing. or the small and large intestine are the same thing. or the kidney and the adrenals are the same thing. its all semantics. jeez.

Finnish music... Anywho, Finland rules at this kind of stuff... My Kantele Truly they lie, they talk utter nonsense Who say that music reckon that the kantele Was fashioned by God Out of a great pike's shoulders From a water-dog's hooked bones: It was made from grief Mouldered from sorrow It's belly out of hard days Its sound board from endless woes Its strings gathered from torments And it pegs from other ills Truly they lie, they talk utter nonsense So it will not play, will not rejoice at all Music will not play to please Give off the right sort of joy For it was fashioned from cares Mouldered from sorrow

also the labeling is not so random as one may undestand, its not something it will fall out of the sky and you should take it that way... the terminology is part of the transmission, and each school has its working concepts that play with regarding practice and understanding of the qi phenomena. basically, the terms can not and should not be mixed up, they are tools, like hammer, nails, axe, knife, whatnot. you cannot make a tool to do the work of another.

qi and prana are not the same thing, as prana is only one component of the life force within the human body-mind, there are other aspects of it, related with the other elements as understood in hindu culture. qi is a concept that belongs to the daoist firstly, is their own interpretation of a force that they feel in the universe. its like this: the more you feel about the details and structure of that force, if you give it a name, it will be the same, yet slightly or more different. some of the nadis correspond with some of the meridians, yet we must admit that the chinese mapped out the energy body better than any culture. are they the same, well, yes and no, and now you know why. dantiens and chackras are not the same, the daoist have different names for them. basically, the dantiens are like the supercenters, and the chackras are like the minicenters. the supercenters control the minicenters. also, the dantiens have to be created using special inner ingredients, meanwhile, the seed chackras are always there, you have to open them and make them more powerfull

the formulas and the practice is very specific, and has specific steps on which you can build up practices like the fusion and kan and li. good foundation generally means a good 10 years of mainly study and practice of the basic formulas. there are people that thought these kind of practices go to slow and the results are too little, and they went to java and stuff to get it all right. after a year of practicing eight hours twice a day, got to a good energy level, but the some really bad news made them go into a shock, and died of a heart attack. it made me think more about why the emotional training is so important to mantak. the problem with the formulas is that very fiew people practice them seriously. mantak is a guy that has a lot of fun teaching and making videos and stuff, and makes you think its all piece of cake, all in the bag. but behind it there are practically networks of people involved in deep study, practice and understanding of the daoist legacy. call them what you want, but my oppinion is those people are not dreamers. there is much, and there are many ways to do the same things. if you come across it or not, it depends on how much do you want to invest, time, study, effort... if you dont, you wont see it, and think it doesnt even exist. thats it. on topic, after visiting a couple of forums and listening to all the interpretation of texts and such, i came to the conclusion that is pretty premature to try and elaborate a general map of taoist thought and practice, mainly because it is not an integral and unified system, its more like different threads starting from different points, with different understanding of simmilar aspects, reaching simmilar results. as i once said, it seems that the context is the one that gives the meaning to the terminology. and there are a lot of different contexts in taoism. beginners first try and debate them, but they are simply different ways to do the same thing, and it sometimes takes longer to acheive, sometimes shorter.... ps: we dont call it HT in Europe. we call it UTS

i was going to post a list of them, but then i remembered i didnt precisely know, that if the first goal fulfills, would i have any interest any more in all the rest of the goals... first goal would be to be whole and complete again

virtue is what we people do to replace something we lost i still think a really good daoist cares less about virtues so, the complete question would be what virtue do we need... it seems to depend on the individual, and most of us speak of what we need most, or what we have most... what do i need? what do i have too much?

all of the above was not regarding the problem, but the attitude i think one should have to solve such a problem. i still think it would be of some help good luck

very interesting i think yet another principle was not putting the self inside it, just merely hinting it, as there was someone to observe the scene, but you couldnt tell how was that person...

he couldnt say everything in a book, not even in a couple of them, and he wont there is a Chinese saying that Mantak says he respects: "If you tell the secrets to an "unworthy" man, the Heavens will punish you. But if you tell them nothing, the Heavens will punish you." By "unworthy" Chinese usually meant nonChinese people, as well as people you dont know very well. And then some. Everything was done in the family. He indeed is not a very traditional type of a teacher, but abiding to rules unwritten is part of the Tao. It was still a big step forward, but we still needed people like Winn, Juan Li and the rest of the good instructors, to make us understand the context of the teaching, and try to apply a simmilar action to a different mindset. The trouble with that is they got criticised because they went off the traditional way of doing things. Its ok, we couldnt do it that way anyhow. Our body-mind is built different. Regarding what steps and when, if he doesnt say it directly, Mantak always leaves traces of it. The simplest one is the order of the assembled system... look at what needs to be mastered first, before going into sexual practices. It is in the description of the levels of the system. The faster you want to progress, the slower you need to go. good luck

(all the haiku i ever read were about catching glimpses on nature, just so. get a load of how we, as westerners, transform it into a cry of subjectiveness. i will try to repare some of the harm done to the good name of haiku ) What is the difference Old man on the shore quiet His eyes are silent

Nice, Smile, you sure have a different energy now... was good, and now better... Listen, I can understand people go over their heads with this practice, but keeping the proper view, as you say, is essential... No matter what you do, if you dont know where to look, it doesnt show up... if you dont know how to look, you will miss it... and more important, if you dont know when to look (being properly prepared, foundation and merits etc), well it wont even matter... Welcome back

belching ecstasy not polite to immortals should do in private

if your soul is still, then you can practice drawing the nectar up to the golden flower, the right way if not, one should work still on smile meditation and taiji, and solve any pending imballancies in his life that should do the trick - until you do that, ANY energy play is premature, you can do it just to feel aquainted, but dont hope for much if one does these things, in this particular order, all the other questions will be solved with no additional words one thing is clear... Mantak is still Chinese, and he says what he can say, nothing more... its up to you to dig out the goods good luck

(skipping the belching part) I'm hungry no more on my old wooden table the light of the moon

The Stars Seem So Far Invard, or is it Outward At this moment, look

its good discussions like this take place, because sometimes some guys just get to carried away with the spectacular insights they have, and start making judgement like masters listen, i think there is little room for moderate claimings here... if you want to impress people, your stuff must be THE stuff, must be IT, or bust there is a great amount of immature testosteron flying around here, sometimes is just amusing and you can feel compassionate and understanding about it; but for some of the guys that take these thing at their proper value, with added mature thinking... sometimes it just is too much a rambling forum is a rambling forum, and we cannot make rules and decide universal values for all of the free thinkers here. but i guess a little slap on the neck from time to time is more precious than gold and bliss too now, for my two cents, or kroners, or whatever... it was said here that qigong is part of neigong, there are people that think qigong, or yang sheng, is designed to sustain heavy achemy processes. i indeed approve on that. without solid qigong formation, neigong and bliss is just... not it. now for the system busters... there is no such thing as a system buster with good effects, only if it has the role of trying to reorganize the olden knowledge in a new format. there is no short path also. no direct experience of enlightenment and bliss, this is only fairy tale. without proper preparation and understanding, these are only beautiful but fleeting experiences that wont last, it will be much like a quick fire that ends as quickly... we will see what happens with this kunlun in the next fiew years. listen, thing are to be done in a specific order, and in a specific way, unless you get what those are, you are just happily feeding your egos with energy-inflated illusions, thats it. any system that brags to be the short way and the system buster, is not worth the time studying. if you take the energy practice out of a person, just as you take out a layer, what is there that remains underneath, if anything... chinese people are really pragmatic and survivor-like. we turned their stuff into something it barely resembles its root. stop being so obtuse, and try to see the fine difference between the inner self and ego, what feed which, and you will be far better off, than wasting your time looking for the wonderlands of alice. sorry for the harsh tone, but this issue really got on my toes, i dont know how much i can bear it any longer...

jeez Starjumper, there's enough craze with kunlun neigong, so why not adding a bit to it kiddin i am just curious though, if, during... say... 12 or 24 months, a couple of guys will show up, each with a bad-ass system that blows it all, will the trooper party move on from one to the other... i think so, it's silly, amusing, and i also behave like a fart sometimes... cant help it but i prefer you instead of Mantra, that's for sure

pfff.... dudes, daoism was never really about fight, it was wu-wei, remember? it's not about IT, but about what some people make out of it. and whatever they do make out of it, it still is at most, half as disrespectfull as any other spiritual path, it's just its nature, wu-wei, no-fight, no fire. but what is a good forum without a good yappin'

Hey there Frank, Welcome. Please do share some of what your training and philosophy consists of. Good luck

Tail... nice anallogy. Yes there appear to be many issues practicioners give little thought to. But heck, there are eight braches of the tao, so, eventually, we will all know better some day. Much to ponder

Thank you, Well I mean merits as in... winning good points. I was reading somewhere about this daoist text where it said that if your ancestors did bad deeds, you have a lot of bad outcomes in your life, and even if you are a good person, it will take you great effort to break thru... One teacher i admire, Juan Li, has an entire course, El Sanamiento della Linea Ancestral... i dont know if i spelled it right. But it seems that healing your genealogical roots is one big step in taking whatever steps forward you need to do. It seems these good deeds, virtuous acts, can be summoned as a summum, you can build them up, and can be a real help, is one part of alchemy i never heard much about. My teacher gave me some pieces and now i want to find out more by myself. Does this have rellevance to you, or goes in line with what you study? L

I was in the 5th grade at school when the Red Regime falled in the EE. So from then on I kind of catched up with all that meant relligion. Not to mention that before that, things were not so harsh with atheism and such, in our country. There were impediments, but not like the one you write about. The funny thing is, and its the main reason I put up those questions, is that i didnt feel anything special about Christianity, Jesus and all. It was all so foreign to me. Of course, i tried to blend in, but at the age of rebellion - teenage - i just told them im not interested They had the pretense, but lacked the power they should have had, in order to represent the Power they talked about. It was just a social group, with special ethical values. Which annoyed me to the point of becoming... well then it happened that i became aquainted with greek philosophy, western philosophy, Kant, Nietzche, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, and so on, and found some real confort in studying the roots of their novative thinking, which i found, some of them, at least, to be in the East. No wonder they were so interesting, the stuff they speak about was so new to Europeans. Now I study this taoist stuff, that gets more misterious as the days go by Another thing i wanted to ask you... What do you know and think about merits Happy Hollidays L

if he spent that much time inside her, it could only mean his mother was a very good person philosophers having not so good mothers... that could explain alot oh, just because i saw you have a different take on almost anything, what do you think about Christmass, about Christianity... Mother Mary etc Jeez, we went from Jing to Mother Mary... Oh but maybe we are still on topic